Item 0005 - Letter, 4 February 1890

Charles Paschal Telesphore Chiniquy was born on July 30, 1809, in Kamouraska, Quebec.

He was a controversial Canadian Catholic priest who left the Catholic Church and became a Presbyterian minister. He studied at the Petit Séminaire in Nicolet, Quebec. In 1833, he was ordained a Catholic priest and served at parishes in Rivière-Boyer, Quebec City (1834) and Beauport (1838), where he founded the Temperance Society in 1839. During the 1840s, he led a very successful campaign throughout Quebec against alcohol and drunkenness. Later he immigrated to Illinois in the United States. In 1855, he was sued by a prominent Catholic layman named Peter Spink in Kankakee, Illinois. Chiniquy hired the lawyer Abraham Lincoln to defend him. The spring court action in Urbana was the highest-profile libel suit in Lincoln's career. The case was ended in the fall court session by agreement. Chiniquy also clashed with the Bishop of Chicago, Anthony O'Regan, over the bishop's treatment of Catholics in the city, particularly French Canadians. The bishop excommunicated him and Chiniquy left the Roman Catholic Church in 1858. He claimed that the church was pagan, that Roman Catholics worshipped the Virgin Mary, that its theology spoiled the Gospel, and was anti-Christian. He also claimed that the Vatican had planned to take over the United States by importing Catholic immigrants from Ireland, Germany, and France. He became a Presbyterian minister and dedicated his life to trying to win his fellow French Canadians, as well as others, from Catholicism to the Protestant faith. He wrote several books and tracts expressing his views on the alleged errors in the faith and practises of the Roman Catholic Church. His two most influential works are “Fifty Years in The Church of Rome” and “The Priest, The Woman and The Confessional”. He received the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity (D.D.) from the Presbyterian College at McGill University, Montreal.

In 1864, he married Euphemie Allard (1835–1911). He died on January 16, 1899, in Montreal, Quebec.